THOSE who have not been actively engaged in the war cannot form any conception of it. When they hear a combatant speak of it, they say:
“Then you fight all the time?” “No.” Whereupon they think: “Then in the firing-line one is not really in much danger.”
Ah, not so fast, good people! In this war, this new, present-day war, the vigilance is continuous, the hand-to-hand struggle is not. Shells fall unceasingly, but the open battle, the assault, is not without interruption. Fortunately.
Thus it was that after the German check, after the Crown of Nancy had withstood the foe’s attack, since the Marne in fact, the sector at Verdun remained quiet.
It was a particularly good point. Here and there a sprinkle of shells, then nothing more. There was fighting everywhere else, in Flanders, in Artois, in Champagne, even in the Woëvre district, but not at Verdun. The sector was so calm, that the only guard left there consisted of Territorials, mostly older men. They worked without too much effort, these fathers of families; without much disturbance, doing general work of repairs about the fortifications, pipe in mouth, almost at peace in the midst of war. In the winter of 1915 they shivered a little with the cold; but the forest was near by, wood was abundant, and the cold caused no great suffering. In the evening, down in the deep trenches, in the well-heated huts, or in the powerful forts, such as Douaumont, Vaux, Vachereauville, they basked in the heat as on a sunny day. They looked at the falling snow and the landscape sleeping under its white blanket. They swept the snow with branches of trees, blew on their fingers a little, accepted their slight discomfort in patience.
December passed, unusually cold; then January came, bringing the new year. One more year gone, one less to come! Soon the beautiful days would come, the spring, and—who knows?—perhaps peace. Germany was tired of it all, near the end of her resources, and would give in. Every one had his own definite idea on the subject. According to one, peace would come before the end of June. Another thought the war would last well toward the end of July. No one imagined that the following winter——
February entered. At the listening-posts one received a surprise: one noticed signs of life and activity among the enemy.
“They are unloading iron.”
“They are doing a lot of talking.”
Bah! The Boches were putting their affairs in order. For more than a year the opposing lines had been looking at each other without any great exchange of blows. They felt quite well acquainted. The fellows opposite were taking good care of their own bones. Some said they were only the Landsturm, who were hibernating over there.
In the town of Verdun the usual life continued. The cafés were so crowded they turned people away; concerts and theatres were in full swing; everywhere there was great animation, on account of the presence of troops in increased numbers. One could not find a vacant room to rent, and the price of provisions soared. All the towns and even villages, where so many troops were spending their money, were infected with this fever of success, of easy money, of the riches which rolled in. Verdun was no exception to the rule. The citadel was choked with troops: officers and privates, drinking and laughing. To be sure, when the war goes well, there is no need to be austere.
February reserved its own surprise. The short month, which amounts to nothing at all, so short that it seems crippled, this one-armed month, displayed in this particular year the malice of a dwarf.
Suddenly the German line burst into flame. It was like a spark on a train of powder. Twelve hundred cannon, perhaps more, crashed in chorus.
“Alerte! To arms!”
Ah! Yes! Ground, hacked, mutilated, overrun, those easy-going papas, the Territorials, fought the best they could; but the Argonne was the accomplice of the Boche. The drive became irresistible. With the shell-power of this massed artillery, the lines were broken and obliterated. Under the storm of shells the trenches were levelled. It was not an artillery battle, nor merely a violent attack. It was rather an avalanche of explosives. The molten torrent, crackling with sparks, fantastic, inhuman, swept all before it. All the massed Krupp guns in diabolic fury spat their clots of flaming blood. The torn, disembowelled earth leaped into the air and fell in dust. A bitter smoke filled the air, dense on the plain and dense on the mountain summit. Douaumont became a forge, Vaux was a fiery cyclone. Thavannes was a scarlet glow, le Mort Homme was a continuous roar, and Verdun heard the approaching thunder in apprehensive dread.
At the call for reinforcements the regiments came in all haste, to bare their breasts to the cannon. Fiercely the units clung to their ground, placed their batteries, intrenched themselves, and offered stubborn resistance. The enemy still advanced. The adversary was not an army division but all Germany, with the dynasty, the Crown Prince, the old Haseleer at their head. The defenders were again faced by the terrible order, “Conquer or die,” as on the Marne and the Yser. Once more that game was played. Once more it had the upper hand. Destiny, impassive, looked on.
Three kilometres of retreat brought the French to the Côte de Poivre.
The Boche had orders to take, at all costs, the “strongest citadel of France.” That success would mean the death of our country. It meant all France exposed to the foe, Paris captured, Defeat. It meant Crime triumphant, history violated, supremacy of brutal might, humanity’s bonds reforged. It meant the flower of the Revolution crushed and Liberty in chains. It meant the Kaiser’s boot on the neck of the world.
“Do you wish aid?” came the message from England, already preparing to send succor. France responded proudly: “No! I can hold my ground.”
And she held it. The world knows it.
An innumerable host, coated in dirty gray like a repulsive animal, rushed on in its heavy, obstinate bravery; as an infuriated bull with lowered head madly charges his foe, so the German brute in his blind rage hurled himself toward us. In the path of the Hunnish Horde stood French valor. THEY SHALL NOT PASS! Nor did they. But—what a struggle!
All the slopes which form the heights of the Meuse and are the ramparts of Gaul, resounded as a monster forge. There Vulcan had set up his furnaces. Such a battle is too great to be recounted. It is the story of Thavannes, whose immense tunnel of approach sheltered a whole battalion at a time. It is the story of the fall of Douaumont; then the siege of indomitable Vaux, dauntless, resisting, panting, quivering like a drum. There the shells fall at the rate of ten per minute. Raynal is commanding there: that is enough. Ten times the German hurled his force against the fortifications, and ten times he fell back, baffled. The garrison stood its ground in a furnace of the damned. New men entered by a breach, followed a narrow path, found the postern gate, and leaped in. For every man who came, came a shell. Overhead twenty airplanes circled about, directing the fire, like vultures above the eagle’s nest; while the cannon on the surrounding heights converged their fire.
Vaux! Heroic name, name never to be forgotten! Vaux, a rock burned by acids, by powder, by the fires of hell. Vaux held out five days, six days—eight days! The sky at night was a hot glow. The earth was one continuous roar of explosions, enveloped in billows of smoke. In that inferno men fought unto death. Trenches, shelters, stone, and earthworks were wiped away by the shells; the battle left the protection of the ground and swung into free space.
The regiments were brought from the rear. They were supplied with food and ammunition by a whole army of camions, which looked like an immense serpent twisting along the road. Beyond Verdun the men entered directly into the furnace. Their units melted in the very act of going to the relief of their comrades at the firing-line. No matter! They advanced, leaping from one shell-hole to another, up to the lines where the survivors of the preceding regiments still held the assailant at a distance. They were one man against ten. Of a hundred who set out, only fifty arrived. They felt the reassurance given by the strength of Vaux. Vaux hammered by blows—but Vaux still living, still French, withstanding the tempest and defying the German. One felt there the heart of steel in the fortress of rock. In addition to the battle all about was the spectacle of a mass of masonry holding an army in check.
Vaux fell. Only thirst ended its resistance. The enemy, stupefied to count the handful of heroes who had thus held them at bay, rendered the captives the highest honors. The Commandant Raynal kept his sword; the Crown Prince, in humility before such glory, was glad to pay him homage, and asked to be presented.
Vaux fell, but Verdun was not taken. There huge shells fell unceasingly. The German loves the easy targets: a cluster of houses, a town, is an object hard to miss. In the town, then, the storm swept the streets. Entire quarters went down in dust. Like Rheims, like Soissons, like Ypres, like Liége, Verdun was the victim of the Huns. People took refuge in the citadel, in its enormous subterranean chambers of massive masonry. There, where the stone corridors were damp as cellars, night and day both soldiers and civilians found shelter. There young mothers nursed their babes, there people of all conditions lived as best they could; there, underground, helter-skelter, all piled together. They could hear the shells of the Hun falling on the city, the houses crumbling, the wounded shrieking.
All France and all the world had their eyes on Verdun the inviolable; on Verdun surrounded by flames, in the vortex of action; on Verdun, which did not weaken. Without respite, the Teutonic masses were hurled to the assault. Like a sea of mud they poured upon the outposts of the city. They were beaten down by grenades, shells, machine-guns, fire, shot, and powder; and They did not pass!
All about were scenes most thrilling. It would be impossible to recount them all. We must choose only one or two.
One day, then, of date unrecorded (Verdun held out eight months!), a troop going up to the fortress of Thavannes found the railway below and followed it. They came to the tunnel and entered, although it was already much encumbered. In vain did the gendarme on guard try to oppose their passage: the newcomers were too many. They numbered about six hundred. Above them the battle raged. They were intending to stop for breath, then go on up the slope and take their posts, where Death awaited them.
No! They will never go so far. They seek a reprieve for an instant in the tunnel, but Death comes to meet them. In the long black cavern are piles of ammunition in transit. There are soldiers, and wounded men, and mules, and general confusion. Some one, man or beast (no one knows which), hits a case of explosives. In the dark tube there is a flash, an uproar, a cloud of smoke: four hundred bodies lie mangled and scorched, as when the fire-damp explodes in the depth of a mine. The living make their way out as best they can, leaving the dead and wounded. The two hundred who escape reform their line, mount the hill, enter the real furnace: this other episode did not count. It was an extra, for good measure. The accident could not prevent the fulfilment of the task before them. What were left of the battalion went where their order sent them. Four hundred fell on the way. Too bad. Orders are orders: they are carried out by the remnant....
This is only one instance in a thousand.
We all had a great curiosity to see the famous precincts where the strife raged so violently. It was almost with joy, therefore, that we received our call. The day the order arrived the news ran quickly through the ranks: “We are going over there, boys!” “Over there” meant Verdun. That was understood. We hastened to get ready; we arranged knapsacks; put our affairs in order. The vans were loaded, the horses hitched. In the canteens we drank to Victory, to the Return, to Good Luck. Eyes glistened behind the smoke of pipes, and we jostled and laughed. Even those who feared the terrible adventure and dreaded death concealed their uneasiness and cloaked it with smiles. On the other hand, many danced for joy, happy to have a part in the fight, to be in full action.
All together, pell-mell, happy and unhappy, we were punctually on the spot appointed for the automobiles to receive us when evening arrived. The entire convoy waited behind a hill. The drivers, muffled up in pelts, chatted while waiting for us. They looked fantastic in the dim light. Only two or three lanterns winked and blinked in the night. One was dimly aware of a file of conveyances lined up along the edge of the road, like great beasts asleep; the going to and fro of the officers of the convoy, and their colloquy with the colonel. It was all more felt than seen. One could distinguish only shadows; one heard the tramp of men, the dull murmur of low-voiced talking, sometimes an exclamation or a stifled oath.
Then orders were transmitted by cyclists. The first battalion set out. Hurriedly each section climbed into the autos. These ought to have carried twenty men each, but twenty-five and even thirty were piled in, somehow, with their arms, their luggage, their knapsacks, their side-bags, their canteens. As soon as a company was loaded in the captain gave the order to go. One by one the cars fell into line. The motors coughed and plunged forward like a dog unleashed. Then ten more machines received a new company, and departed in their turn. They also were swallowed up by the night.
When my turn came, by some chance I was assigned to an auto with the officers, where we were much less crowded than in the large vehicles of the privates. I therefore expected to gain some further information concerning our destination. In this I was disappointed, as the officers knew very little about it; besides, from the time the motor started and the auto was on its way no further conversation was possible. We could not hear each other, even when nearly shouting, and we had enough to do in resisting the bumps which threw us against each other. We inhaled the dust: a thick, heavy dust, raised by the wheels. It soon covered us completely. One could feel it coating his face, and small grains of sand rolled between one’s fingers. We could not see, for the curtains were drawn down tightly, and it was very dark. We travelled as in an interminable tunnel, with no light whatever, with no knowledge of what we were passing or of the country we were traversing. Sometimes there were sudden stops. The quickly set brakes brought us to a standstill with a jerk. We asked the driver: “What is the matter? Where are we?” He scarcely answered, for he knew no more than we. His order was to follow the auto in front of him, and to keep his machine twenty metres behind, that he might avoid a collision in case of a too-sudden stop. He followed his orders, and knew nothing more. He did not even know the road we were travelling. The car which led the procession carried the chief officer of the convoy. Probably he was the only man besides our colonel who knew our destination.
Thus we journeyed four hours before dawn. As the pale light invaded our rolling apartment little by little, we saw how completely we were covered with dust. We were white from head to feet, like a miller dredged in his flour. Our clothing was white, our hair, our faces, our arms. We appeared grotesquely like veritable old men. We looked each other over and laughed. Then, as there was nothing more to fear from the dust, a lieutenant raised a curtain. We found ourselves on a winding road in a charming, gently-rolling country. Small trees formed tiny groves on the hillsides, and the whole landscape was quite different from that we had just left.
Suddenly the captain made a gesture. He had perceived an airplane, soaring directly over us in a most disquieting manner. It was flying too high for us to distinguish, even with glasses, whether it was French or German; but its manœuvres were suspicious. It had command of the road, and seemed to be preparing to fire on the convoy. In fact, that was exactly what happened, a few minutes later, when the flyer suddenly came lower and opened fire with his mitrailleuse. The automobiles increased their speed and lengthened the distance from one to another. Nevertheless, the aviator could move much faster than could we, and he circled above us like a vulture over his prey. Fortunately, he had no bombs, and his aim was too uncertain to inflict much damage. As it was, he wounded several men, and would have wounded many more if the special guns for the purpose had not opened fire on him, or if three French planes had not appeared on the horizon. At sight of them he made a hasty escape, amid our shouts and jeers. Our wounded were rapidly cared for by a surgeon, and shortly after were placed in the first field-hospital encountered on the road, amid the ruins of a village. This village gave us the first knowledge of our whereabouts. We were entering the valley of the Woëvre, and Verdun lay beyond the hills. The roll of the cannon had become audible.
After a short halt we set out again. This time we entered the field of action. It was evidenced by the constantly increasing number of convoys encountered. Long lines of camions were climbing toward the battle, loaded with munitions or food; or, like our own, with men. The road became very wide, encroaching some distance into the fields. Some soldiers, in the stream of conveyances, threw pebbles under our wheels without as much as lifting their eyes to look at us: they had seen so much already that the spectacle of troops going under fire interested them not at all.
With our advance the scene changed rapidly. We saw some autos overturned in a ditch and burning. Some dead horses stretched their rigid legs in the air. Under some tents men bustled about with stretchers, instruments, and boxes. These were the temporary dressing-stations, where the men wounded on the route were cared for: any who had met with accidents from vehicles, as well as those who had been hit by shell-splinters—for we had entered the zone of projectiles, and stray splinters reached even that far. The scene became indescribable. It was a mob, where one felt nevertheless a discipline, a sense of regulated, methodical order. We were in the side-wings of the battle, in the midst of its movable stage-settings, among the stage-hands, machinists, electricians, and supernumeraries, whose activities are unseen by the public, but who make it possible for the performance to go on and be brilliant. Long trains of horse-drawn caissons followed each other at full speed. Field-ambulances, marked with large red crosses, slipped into the moving stream. Vehicles of every sort, gray with dust or mud-bespattered, rumbled, creaked, rolled along, stopped, started, stuck in the ruts, freed themselves. The moving line looked like the folds of a fabulous serpent.
The voice of the cannon increased in power and volume. It was like hearing an orchestra of inferno. The ear received only a tremendous, continuous roar, like the rolling of thunder which never ceases.
We could see the earth tossed high like a geyser when a shell struck. We breathed the pungent odor of the battle. We were getting into it now. Most of the houses were demolished. The buildings still standing all bore the marks of war, with great ragged holes in walls and roof, with stains of powder and fire. Enough of them remained in close rows to indicate the streets leading into the town. We crossed the Meuse and found ourselves in the city. It appeared deserted. We looked curiously up and down the streets, without finding any sign of life whatever, except an occasional hurrying soldier, a cyclist, or an automobile racing at full speed between the silent houses. We made some détours, crossed squares, and skirted gardens. The whole city lay open to our view; and above the roofs the massive silhouette of the citadel spread its protecting wings.
The locking of wheels gave us a jolt: we had arrived. Glad to tread the ground once more, we leaped down and entered an abandoned factory, where we were to camp. The windows had long since lost their glass, but the roof remained. It was a fragile protection against shells, but quite adequate against wind and rain. Along the walls was stacked dirty straw, broken to crumbs by the many sleeping troops. That was our bed. It would be for many their last sleep before the sleep of death, for the orders came immediately: we would mount to the first lines at nightfall.
The march into the battle was at first simple. We advanced in the descending shadows, we left the town behind. Before us the heavens were streaked with the light of explosives. We marched by sections, in silence. We marched straight ahead, with heart beating quickly, mouth dry, brain a blank. In spite of myself, I set my teeth and gripped my hands. We could not distinguish the road we trod, but were dimly aware sometimes of trees stripped bare, of low ruins, of puddles of water, of general débris. We simply followed the man in front, scarcely turning the head when a flock of shells fell at the right, or left, or ahead. We only knew we were in the zone where they fell. We heard the hoarse shriek of the projectiles high in the air, and the chorus of cannon re-echoed in each breast. We no longer felt the chill of the night air. We knew not if we breathed. The farther we went, the more difficult did the walking become. We stumbled over the uneven ground, ploughed up by the shells; but we were not yet in the place of torment, and the missiles spared us. We passed many moving shadows: couriers, orderlies, estafettes, officers, wounded, we knew not what. They were only dark objects moving about in the night, outlined by the glow of the projectiles; instantly swallowed again by the shadows and giving place to others. We knew nothing about them. We knew only one great fact: that we were always advancing toward the fire; we were approaching the first lines, where the conflagration raged at white heat.
Then—we were in the midst of the shells. The frenzy was on. The wounded cried out. We held together the best we could. We entered chaos. Whirlwinds of explosives enveloped us. They were above, around, beneath. The very earth leaped up and lashed our faces and hands. Violent gusts of hot wind shook us. We ran. We joined some other comrades. We could not proceed in lines, but moved in groups. There were no longer any usable trenches. They were torn open, crushed in, filled up, making any advance in them impossible. Therefore we marched in the open, and we advanced. We would leap into a shell-crater, catch our breath for a second, look out for another hole, and hurl ourselves into it as quickly as possible. The rain of steel enveloped everything, in a tumult unbelievable. We scarcely knew if we lived; we certainly thought no more about death. The fixed, absolute, imperious idea, the only surviving thing in our consciousness, was to arrive at our destination, where we could give our service. We felt that we were near the spot and must attain it.
We often lost our way. The officers looked for the road, asked the direction, shouted orders. We understood as best we could. We ran at full speed, threw ourselves flat on the ground, sprang up and ran again. We knew only one thing: we must succeed in reaching our appointed post, we must reach the firing-line: we could not stop, we could not rest, until we found the location of the regiment we were sent to relieve.
For three hours we plunged across the jagged fields. The ground rose and fell and rose again. Sometimes, behind a pile of earth, we found some men. We shouted some questions. They knew nothing to tell us, as they were not of the regiment which we sought. They were out of breath, like ourselves; or they were wounded, or they had just been relieved, or they had just arrived and were themselves seeking their post, or they were hopelessly lost and joined in with us. If they were officers, they questioned us:
“What regiment?” “Where are you going?” “What division?” “What army?” “Have you seen such and such a regiment?” “No.” “Yes, at the right.” “Over at the left.” “Make room there!”
Some ambulances charged past. We saw some first-aid stations in full operation, with wounded shrieking all about. Some couriers, out of breath, shouted instructions: “Go straight on. Your regiment is two hundred metres from here, near the canal.”
Finally we arrived, under such a hail of bullets, machine fire, and shrapnel that we were not even conscious of danger. We found some men, half buried in holes, who went away and left us. They melted into the night.
We had reached our post on the firing-line, in an unknown plain, which seemed to be flooded with dead bodies, as a fallow field is a riot of corn-flowers and nettles. We had no idea how we had succeeded in reaching the spot.
There was nothing more to do but fight and in our turn, wait for the Relief, or for Death.